Gee, who did not see this coming?

In a fairly unprecedented move, the DOJ has decided to drop charges of voter intimidation that were filed against three members of the “The New Black Panther Party”.

From FOXNews:

Charges Against ‘New Black Panthers’ Dropped by Obama Justice Dept.
Three men were accused of trying to threaten voters and block poll and campaign workers by the threat of force — one even brandishing what prosecutors call a deadly weapon.

Charges brought against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense under the Bush administration have been dropped by the Obama Justice Department, FOX News has learned.

The charges stemmed from an incident at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008 when three members of the party were accused of trying to threaten voters and block poll and campaign workers by the threat of force — one even brandishing what prosecutors call a deadly weapon.

The three black panthers, Minister King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Shabazz and Jerry Jackson were charged in a civil complaint in the final days of the Bush administration with violating the voter rights act by using coercion, threats and intimidation. Shabazz allegedly held a nightstick or baton that prosecutors said he pointed at people and menacingly tapped it. Prosecutors also say he “supports racially motivated violence against non-blacks and Jews.”

The complaint says the men hurled racial slurs at both blacks and whites.

A poll watcher who provided an affidavit to prosecutors in the case noted that Bartle Bull, who worked as a civil rights lawyer in the south in the 1960′s and is a former campaign manager for Robert Kennedy, said it was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever seen.

In his affidavit, obtained by FOX News, Bull wrote “I watched the two uniformed men confront voters and attempt to intimidate voters. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters.”

He also said they tried to “interfere with the work of other poll observers … whom the uniformed men apparently believed did not share their preferences politically,” noting that one of the panthers turned toward the white poll observers and said “you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”

A spokesman for the Department of Justice told FOX News, “The Justice Department was successful in obtaining an injunction that prohibits the defendant who brandished a weapon outside a Philadelphia polling place from doing so again. Claims were dismissed against the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law. The department is committed to the vigorous prosecution of those who intimidate, threaten or coerce anyone exercising his or her sacred right to vote.”

I say fairly unprecedented, since it is highly unusual for a default case to be dropped like this. In normal circumstances, the charges would have stood the DOJ would have gone on to the next step, which would have been a hearing and, if needed, a trial. Instead, we get the usual whitewashing (pun intended) from the usual suspects.

From Michelle Malkin:

Yesterday, I reported on the Obama DOJ’s smelly decision to drop default judgments against two New Black Panther Party thugs in the Philly voter intimidation case. Election Journal, which originally broke the story on Election Day last fall, posted on the decision the day before. The Washington Times follows up today with an “exclusive” on the story.

She also reports that Project 21 wants an investigation into this.

By the way, what is it with these Malcolm X-wannabes that all of their names spell out like a bad Scrabble hand?

The official Obama/DNC voting gear:

I wonder if The Justice Brothers are feeling very lonely and unwanted lately? So little left for them to do.

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You might remember the name Charles Payne. You also might remember hearing mentions of him by Obama himself during speeches and also seeing his name mentioned in some Obama campaign ads. Well, Mr. Payne recently set down with Spegiel magazine to help clear the air.

As reported by Newsmax today:

Obama’s Uncle: He’s Using Buchenwald for Political Purpose

Barack Obama’s great uncle offered some blunt language as to why his nephew is visiting the memorial at the former Buchenwald concentration camp next week during his trip to Europe and the Middle East.

“This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I’m sure, but for political reasons,” Charles Payne told the German magazine Spiegel. “Perhaps his visit also has something to do with improving his standing with (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel. She gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards.”

Obama will visit Saudi Arabia, make a long-awaited speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, travel to Dresden and the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp in Germany, and attend D-Day commemorations in France. His uncle said he’d love to tag along if he gets a lift on Air Force One.

Payne, 84, is no stranger to Americans: The Obama campaign used his WWII experiences last year to burnish the candidate’s all-American upbringing. But Obama made a gaffe when he said his great uncle liberated Auschwitz. In fact, Payne was part of the force that liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, in April 1945.

Payne told Spiegel that he was shocked to see his war experience, especially his “liberation” of a concentration camp, used in campaign commercials. He said he had never spoken with his nephew about the matter, nor did Obama ever express any interest in Payne’s experience.

“I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany,” Payne said. “We had never talked about that before.”

I would recommend reading the entire story, as Mr. Payne’s war experiences are worth the read.

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More fallout from DealerGate.

From the Washington Post (Hat Tip – Stop the ACLU):

Since the 1970s, General Motors has led the way in providing opportunities for minorities to own car dealerships. The automaker pioneered special training programs and put money behind candidates for new dealerships.

Now, after almost four decades of slow but steady progress, minority dealers are increasingly worried that the latest wave of GM cuts could erode any gains. As part of its latest restructuring, GM yesterday said it planned to slash about 2,600, or 40 percent, of its 6,200 dealerships. GM currently has about 240 minority dealers.

GM officials have yet to list which dealers could face closure. GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos said decisions will be based on individual dealer performance but said the company remains committed to expanding the number of minority-owned dealerships. The criteria include sales, customer satisfaction ratings, capitalization, profitability, location and the quality and size of the store. Minority dealers say those criteria could prove fatal for their operations.

More to the point is a black dealership owner in MI:

Others also expressed worry about GM’s criteria for keeping dealers.

“I’ve got two of the largest volume Chevrolet stores on either side of me,” said Mike Johnson, owner of Michael Chevrolet in New Baltimore, Mich. “In terms of raw numbers, we don’t compete with the larger, well-established white dealers. GM is going to be looking for the dealers who dominate their market territories.”

GM dealers see other bad signs. They point to GM’s decision to kill the Pontiac brand. Nearly a third of GM’s minority dealers sell Pontiacs, according to the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers.

The number of minority dealerships industry-wide has slipped to about 1,200 from a peak of 2,000 in 2002 and 2003, according to NAMAD. Johnson said he was particularly concerned about the staggering decline of black-owned dealerships at GM.

“In 1990, GM had over 100 African American dealers. Today we are down to 40,” he said. “We are absolutely certain that a large portion of us are going to get wiped out.”

So even as President, a man who sat 20 years in a Black Klan church, who used race in every possible way to drive wedges between communities, parties and candidates to get elected and continues to do so to this day, could very well end up screwing those minorities he vowed to “save and protect”. But why should that surprise anyone? Chicago thug politics are not known for their loyalty to anything but it’s practitioners.

Hope and change, anyone?

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And the stink from this rotten garbage of a “bailout” just keeps on growing.

Thanks to a lot of diligent and exhaustive work from the conservative blogosphere, it is becoming more and more clear everyday that there is a lot more of a political tinge showing up when it comes to those Chrysler dealerships that are being shuttered, stolen or just flat out bullied by this administration.

As if breaking federal contract law with secured bond holders, preventing the company from going through the normal channels of bankruptcy, handing over large percentages of the company by fiat to heavy-money union heads and operatives, while also waltzing into corporate offices and firing the CEO is not enough, now we have some naked graft showing itself in spades over this whole episode.

As detailed in the report snippets below, it now appears that there is a lot of favoritism going on behind the scenes when it comes to just whose car dealership’s ox will be gored and whose will not be.

From Red State:

Since Doug Ross reported that many of the dealers on the list of Chrysler outlets to be closed were donors mostly to Republicans, attention has now been focused on the list of dealerships which are slated to remain open. Some preliminary findings, as well as related news, have bombshell potential.

First of all, bear in mind that these early findings are only preliminary, and the entire list has not been researched. It’s a process which takes time, but several people are on the case. Joey Smith is one of them, and he’s set up a website where you can track his progress. Gateway Pundit has also been following the story here and here.

Joey’s first big find involves RLJ-McLarty-Landers, a company which operates six Chrysler dealerships in the South and lower Midwest. All six of the dealerships have been chosen to remain open. Most interesting about the partnership, however, are the partners. RLJ-McLarty-Landers is owned by Steve Landers, Thomas McLarty and Robert Johnson. Who are these guys?

Landers is a big-time, fourth-generation auto dealer. In addition to the six Chrysler dealerships, he has a number of other car franchises, including Ford and Toyota dealerships in Little Rock, and he also acquired the Harley Davidson dealership there.

Little Rock is Bill Clinton’s old stomping ground, and lo and behold, the Thomas MCLarty who is the second partner in the group is “Mack” McClarty, a long time Clinton associate who served the former president as chief of staff during their days in the White House.

The third partner in RLJ-Mclarty-Landers is Robert Johnson, who founded Black Entertainment Television and is a co-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats of the National Basketball Association.

The Astute Pundit found a very interesting story from Reuters that reports that Chrysler themselves did not approve of the closings:

From the story:

NEW YORK, May 26 (Reuters) – A lawyer for Chrysler dealers facing closure as part of the automaker’s bankruptcy reorganization said on Tuesday he believes Chrysler executives do not support a plan to eliminate a quarter of its retail outlets.

Lawyer Leonard Bellavia, of Bellavia Gentile & Associates, who represents some of the terminated dealers, said he deposed Chrysler President Jim Press on Tuesday and came away with the impression that Press did not support the plan.

“It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers,” Bellavia said. “It really wasn’t Chrysler’s decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President’s automotive task force.”

He added the government task force, which he criticized for having no members with retail experience was, in effect, attacking U.S. entrepreneurs.

“What is the next task force? Shoe stores? Pizzerias?” Bellavia said at an event in Manhattan to publicize the dealers’ concerns ahead of a bankruptcy court hearing.

And later:

‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL’

“I think it’s unconstitutional,” said Jim Anderer, owner of Island Jeep in Lindenhurst, New York.

“The Fifth Amendment clearly states you cannot take another person’s property without due process or compensation. Even in eminent domain, there is an appraised price on the property
being taken by the state.”

Anderer said he has been in business for 22 years and employs 48 workers. He intends to fight the plan.

“My business is being stolen from me under the guise of the bankruptcy laws, given to another dealer down the street,” Anderer said.

Damn right it is unconstitutional. This is just like Mugabe seizing (mainly white) farms owned for generations by force and giving them to political and personal friends and relatives. The parallels are striking.

Doug Ross, who first blew the whistle on this case back on the 25th, has a followup, showing pretty clearly that a good number of these closings have been politically (and financially) motivated:

Dealers on the closing list donated millions to Republicans, $200 for Obama

The initial pass at the list of shuttered dealers showed they had donated, in the aggregate, millions to Republican candidates and PACs and a total of $200 to Barack Obama.

In fact, I have thus far found only a single Obama donor ($200 from Jeffrey Hunter of Waco, Texas) on the closing list.

Another review of all 789 closing dealerships, by WND, found $450,000 donated to GOP presidential candidates; $7,970 to Sen. Hillary Clinton; $2,200 to John Edwards and $450 to Barack Obama.

Now, and this is important, Chrysler claimed that its formula for determining whether a dealership should close or not included “sales volume, customer service scores, local market share and average household income in the immediate area.”

Dealer Jim Anderer told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto he can’t comprehend how his dealership can be among those killed: he stated that his sales volume ranking is in the top 2 percent of all dealers.

Furthermore, Anderer says explanations aren’t forthcoming. “They won’t tell us. They seem to be running for cover right now because they won’t give us a solid explanation. They come up with all these reasons, but none of them seem to make sense… This is insanity. The government is stealing my business. And they’re telling me there’s nothing I can do about it… There was no process that you could put your finger on and say, ‘Hey, we cut 25 percent of the lowest performing dealers.’ They didn’t do that. Nobody will give us a real clear explanation of the formula that they came up with.”

And Michelle Malkin reports this from BizJournals.com

U.S. Sens. Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond wrote a letter Friday to President Barack Obama’s auto task force seeking answers to concerns raised by Chrysler and General Motors dealerships in Missouri that learned last week their contracts will be terminated.

Auto dealers statewide have expressed frustration to McCaskill and Bond about the lack of information they have received from Chrysler and GM, saying they didn’t know the criteria used to make the contract termination decisions.

The two Missouri senators asked the task force for the criteria used to determine how many and which dealerships would be terminated, as well as the process for dealerships to appeal decisions.

“Many Missouri dealers are asking us why certain profitable dealers, costing the auto companies nothing, were selected for closure,” McCaskill, a Democrat, and Bond, a Republican, wrote to White House car czar Steve Rattner. “From this perspective it appears an arbitrary standard may have been used to make these decisions … these dealers deserve a little more than just a pink slip in the mail.”

Banks, mortgage houses and the auto industry. All now under the thumb of a few white-collared, politically-charged thugs. Mussolini would be damn envious of this kind of power.

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You know. I am starting to have doubts about this administration.

After four months, I am not seeing the flowers, rainbows and unicorns abounding over the countryside like a scene from Bambi . I do not see lions lying down with lambs or jihahists throwing down their weapons and praying next to Jews. There are still mortgages outstanding, people with overloaded credit cards, long lines in the unemployment office and the uninsured having to use pliers to remove teeth, tumors and foot corns.

However, never fear. The Obama administration is going to make sure you are safe, even if it kills you. Nevermind the fact that people have an aversion to low-flying planes bobbing around in major cities, you are to be impressed at this administration’s ability to handle the War on Terr…..errr….The Limp Wristed Donnybrook Overseas.

From HotAir.com

Nothing too serious this time. Instead of sending people screaming through the streets for fear of an impending terrorist attack, this one had passersby pointing with concern at what they thought was a plane dumping fuel in preparation for a crash landing. It was a DHS test too, not a photo op for Air Force One. The mission? To test anti-missile defenses on commercial jets in case someone else gets the same idea as that NYC terror cell the feds just busted.

Perfunction weighs in:

Granted, it lacked that extra special theatrical touch of a military interceptor screaming after it in hot pursuit, but you know, it’s better to keep everyone guessing. DHS having the mysteriously sinister airliner linger like a bird of prey as it hunts for the choice target amps up the panic in its own special way.

To see the actual video, go to Perfunction.

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Caleb Howe over at Red State (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin) has a rather disturbing, if hardly surprising and fairly long article on some rather outrageous ads that may have been running on the History Channel’s website.

Many kudos to Mr. Howe for doing some great investigative reporting that is so foreign to the Obama Stenographers Society, formerly known as the mainstream media. As his journey to find the true source of these disgusting ads led him all the way to South Africa.

Above Image: Not my best work, but I banged it out in 5 minutes and besides, the numbers speak for themselves.

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As Bugs Bunny used to say, “The 5:15, right on time.”

It seems to me that there is little to no need for the Atomic Clock to keep accurate time anymore, since we now have a Veep that is like precision clockwork when it comes to gaffes, blunders, idiocy and overall buffoonery. Richard Simmons could make a fortune with the “Joe Biden Leg Lift Into Mouth” video. (Only $15 extra for the Chris Matthews Leg Tingle massage to warm down from such a vigorous exercise).

Plugs did it once again when, earlier this year in a speech given at the Gridiron Club, he disclosed the location of one of the bunkers that is assigned to the Veep during national emergencies.

Here is portion from an Eleanor Clift story at Newsweek about the Vice President’s secret bunker: (Hat Tips to Hot Air and Jawa for this)

Ever wonder about that secure, undisclosed location where Dick Cheney secreted himself after the 9/11 attacks? Joe Biden reveals the bunker-like room is at the Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years and which is now home to Biden. The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall. Cheney has emerged as the leading critic of the Obama administration on national security, saying the president’s policies are making America less safe, and if there’s another attack, it will be Obama’s fault. This is tough stuff, but as the architect of the Bush administration’s policies on war and torture, he has a much bigger legacy to protect than the president he helped steer onto the shoals.

As Hot Air notes:

I’m pretty sure that’s not the “undisclosed location,” just an undisclosed location. The Cheney bunker where he spent time in lockdown post-9/11 was revealed five years ago to be a complex on the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. (Or was that just disinformation?) By Biden’s own account, only Cheney’s aides were stationed in the bunker at the VP’s house, not the big fish himself. Even so, what was this moron doing musing about vice-presidential security in front of an audience, even one that’s supposedly “off the record” as the Gridiron’s is

Whatever the case, whether it is just one of the “locations” or the prime-rib “location” that the Veep uses during national emergencies, this is just one more Bidenism that will more than likely get him tossed off of the 2012 Obama ticket, ala Spiro Agnew.

Should be fun to watch.

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